GP? I think not.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by DanTod97

im getting the feeling of a "if you cant beat em, join em" attitude here, I disagree completely.

That attitude is just denying that change is an acceptable answer. As ive stated before, even though people seem to be ignoring it, I only created this thread to remind people this is a high school competetion and to request everyone just be aware of that and to be extra careful to make sure there team is run as a highschool team. No attack on any teams at all, I have nothing but love for FIRST and all of its teams, but that doesnt mean I think they are all perfect, unless they beleive they are, and I hope no team does. Just the fact that so many other threads like this exist enforces my feeling that this is an existing problem people choose to ignore and just join them instead.

Im going to stop repeating myself and hopefully be done with this topic, I think ive made my opinions clear and can only hope they will do some good.

You're forgetting one small detail. FIRST has never said that teams should be run as a high school team.

In fact, they celebrate teams that are run as a business through the Entrepreneurship award. They celebrate engineers through the Engineering Inspiration award, and they celebrate mentors and engineers through the Woodie Flowers Award.

To me it is insulting to hear someone say so convincingly and so self righteously that the way other teams (my own included) are doing things is wrong, against the principles of FIRST, hurting the kids, and just plain unfair.

When FIRST becomes about being a high school science fair, maybe you'll be right. But the reason FIRST is great is because of the way it is. If you didn't have all these amazing engineers that FIRST students (heck, and mentors) look up to like Andy Baker, Paul Copioli, Raul Olivera, Dave Lavery, Al Skiekerkiewicz, Ken Patton, Dan Green, and countless others, where would this program be?

Some could contend having an all student team is just as "wrong" as having a mentor dominated team, but who cares?

The real point here is you have a team. Everything else is gravy. Whatever you choose to do with it from that point on is awesome, as long as the kids are getting inspired; and there's no way you can tell me the kids on the powerhouse teams who everyone thinks are engineer built (and often are surprisingly different than they may appear from the outside looking in after you get to know them) aren't being inspired.

How is that not a good thing?